Health Insurance- Or ELSE!

[Denny Crane]

I agree that health care costs need to be addressed, as they are skyrocketing much faster than our economic growth or inflation.

That said, this government thinks the way to address the issue is to throw TRILLIONS of dollars at it. Some studies have shown that with the ideas being thrown around, it would cost $1.6 Trillion to insure 10 million of the uninsured, over a decade. That would be an average of $160,000 per person over 10 years. We would be better off as tax payers to just continue paying the medical bills of their uninsured asses, as there is no way the average person runs up a medical bill of $160,000 every 10 years.

Quit making sense - Or ELSE!

 

[Ed O]

If you make so much money that you're getting taxed more than you like the solution is very simple.

Stop hogging the wealth. Retire. Sell your vacation home. Live a modest but comfortable life.

There are many less fortunate people who will work harder than you and not mind at all paying higher taxes in exchange for the benefits of wealth.

You're confusing "wealth" and "income".

People who generate lots of income tend to DESERVE it. They have education or skills that are in demand, and they're able to earn more.

If the people who make good income are forced or encouraged to stop earning that money, guess what happens to the economy? It goes in the shitter. Surgeons and attorneys and other professional services can't just be replaced by people who are currently earning lower money.

If you're talking about WEALTH, rather than income, then you're causing other problems. So a wealthy person sells her second home and then does... what? Lives "modestly". Doing ... what? Putting money under their mattress? And to whom does she sell her second home, if other people of means are all trying to sell theirs?

You post doesn't make any sense to me.

As for the original post: it makes sense, but I disagree with it. I'm relatively young and I'm pretty healthy. Why am I pretty healthy? Because I work out and because I eat reasonably well. I am currently uninsured and I have been entirely fine without health insurance. If I had the choice between additional income or health insurance, I would choose additional income every time.

Health care for other people just isn't that important to me. I do not want the federal government forcing me into paying a substantial tax on the way I choose to live.

Ed O.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

You are so out of touch it is sad. I'm done with you, we each get a vote so I guess we can veto one another.

This is Sug code for "please stop kicking my ass, maxiep".

 

[yakbladder]

If you make so little money that you have to have others pay for you, the solution is very simple.

Stop buying consumer goods or brand name merchandise. You should only be allowed to buy certain brands of cars, clothes and goods. Work more. Rent instead of buying a house. Live a meager life of eating bread and cheese every day.

There are many more fortunate people who will will spend wiser than you.

The unfortunate problem is that many people are born into a scenario. Rich people tend to hold onto their wealth providing substantial advantages for the generation after them. Poor people constantly spend to do silly things like, I don't know, stay alive, and so have little to pass on to their next generation.

I have no problem with individual X earning a bazillion dollars, though I would hope that at some point way up there they'd realize that they don't need more. The problem I have is that once individual X is way up there they can pass along huge, huge advantages to their next generation who haven't contributed one iota to society.

 

[maxiep]

I am glad you guys that are so well educated can totally ignore the bankruptcy issue around healthcare. It shows a serious dedication to having your head up your ass.

What would you rather have, your health or your house? I believe people are responsible for their own lives. If they don't purchase enough health insurance to cover themselves, then they pay the cost. Life isn't always milk and cookies.

 

[Denny Crane]

I had a business once that went bankrupt. I sure would love it if we had taxed everyone and gave the money to me so it wouldn't have gone bankrupt.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

I have no problem with healthcare for all and even have my own thoughts on the matter, but this plan is both punitive as well as poorly designed. Obama just got done raising taxes on the "rich" and now another seperate tax and Oregon just raised taxes on people making over $125,000/yr by 25%.

Is this really fair?

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

What would you rather have, your health or your house? I believe people are responsible for their own lives. If they don't purchase enough health insurance to cover themselves, then they pay the cost. Life isn't always milk and cookies.

maxiep, he made it clear he was unable to answer you as you had fully defeated him. And it was masterful.

 

[Ed O]

The unfortunate problem is that many people are born into a scenario. Rich people tend to hold onto their wealth providing substantial advantages for the generation after them. Poor people constantly spend to do silly things like, I don't know, stay alive, and so have little to pass on to their next generation.

I have no problem with individual X earning a bazillion dollars, though I would hope that at some point way up there they'd realize that they don't need more. The problem I have is that once individual X is way up there they can pass along huge, huge advantages to their next generation who haven't contributed one iota to society.

I understand why you would think this way, but isn't part of the joy of earning money being able to pass it along to your progeny?

I don't think that there's anything wrong with the state providing a level playing field, but I think it would overstep its bounds to level things every generation.

Ed O.

 

[Sug]

maxiep, he made it clear he was unable to answer you as you had fully defeated him. And it was masterful.

Because the people he loves and cares about are all tied to the busted system, yes he took me to school. Unfortunatley the lesson was that his self-interest is more important than the health of his country. This is the Neocon way, self-interest ahead of nation. Then you wrap that in a bunch of meritocracy, pull yourself up by your own bootstrap bullshit. The founders believed in equality, and in the belief of a nation that stood together against exploitation and unfair treatment. The fact that Maxie believes poverty to be a choice in itself shows that he is out of touch. When I said he was out of touch his response was that his mother has a high paying job at a hospital and his sister is a doctor...a great perspective on poverty.

 

[chris_in_pdx]

See: Auto Insurance. I don't see anyone bitching about that.

 

[MARIS61]

And this is exactly what happens. If I'm forced to pay more in taxes, what's my incentive to work harder?

More wealth, obviously.

That is such a lame arguement, having no basis in simple logic.

Even if you pay 50% taxes on your 2nd million, that's still $500,000 you get to keep.

If that's not enough to motivate a little effort out of you, it's unlikely you earned your first million through honest effort anyway. You are probably coasting as it is and your abscence from the workplace would only open up a spot for someone hungrier who would contribute more to society in the long run.

I was born and raised in Lake Oswego and know dozens of millionaires. They would be the first to admit that not one of them works as hard as the median American worker. I seriously doubt they have the mental tenacity to hold down 2 normal jobs like so many parents have to do just to afford living costs.

 

[Sug]

See: Auto Insurance. I don't see anyone bitching about that.

Exactly, thanks.

 

[hasoos]

While it's not nice, there are some huge problems with our health care system. How else do you address the following:

1. Hospitals cannot refuse to treat patients. Patients come in with no coverage, they are in a bad way and when it's time to sign the responsibility sheet, they sign it because their life is in danger, and if they don't get medical help, they are going to be fucked up. Some are poor illegal aliens. They know they don't have the money to cover the bills. They get the treatment, and when the bills come they declare bankruptcy(or split the country..). The hospitals get stiffed for the bill and then have to make it up somehow. That somehow is all of us having higher medical costs, and in turn higher insurance rates to pay because the insurance companies pass the buck on to "the man".

2. Should anybody ever have to worry about being treated at a medical facility? There is nothing worse than seeing a poor person who is saddled with a situation where they cannot afford medical treatment. That is inhuman in itself. On the other side of the coin, there are people who do have coverage, but the costs are so high that it bankrupts them and destroys their lives in order to get treated. If you have no sympathy for poor folks, at least responsible folks shouldn't have this happen to them. It is horrible.

3. Malpractice insurance is causing our Doctors to leave the business. With patients stiffing doctors for bills, it is hard for them to keep up the massive payments required for this insurance. They are choosing to leave the field rather then keep on healing. Some areas are having shortages of Doctors, and the government is actually having to provide money incentives to get Doctors to go to certain areas. This has caused some drastic levels in reduction in health care quality in certain parts of the country.

The only way I can see that you could make it work perfectly in a capitalist society, is if everybody made enough money and had health care through their work. That just isn't the case, too many of our jobs are low pay and always will be. At the same time, you can be a cold bastard and say that those people could make a better life for themselves and get that coverage. I say to you people, that you have never witnesseed somebodies life being destroyed in moments by an unexpected medical issue, and that if you ever had that happen to somebody you knew and cared about, you wouldn't see it the same way.

I have some problems with the way this is being forced on folks, but at the same time, I almost don't see an alternative. IMO people should have the right to health care. But I just don't see how we can get it virtually free for everybody until we have a little device in every home that can make your drugs for you for free. Part of the problem being, it costs so much to find cures for illness, that it costs a lot when it comes time to treat it.

What do you do when the costs for healing are just so high, that people cannot pay the price?

 

[Ed O]

See: Auto Insurance. I don't see anyone bitching about that.

I can simply not drive a car if I don't want to opt in. Driving is a privilege granted by the state and no one is guaranteed the ability to use public roads.

As far as I can tell, I can't opt out of this medical insurance scheme. I mean, I CAN, but it involves suicide.

Is living a privilege granted by the state now?

Ed O.

 

[blazerboy30]

More wealth, obviously.

That is such a lame arguement, having no basis in simple logic.

Even if you pay 50% taxes on your 2nd million, that's still $500,000 you get to keep.

If that's not enough to motivate a little effort out of you, it's unlikely you earned your first million through honest effort anyway. You are probably coasting as it is and your abscence from the workplace would only open up a spot for someone hungrier who would contribute more to society in the long run.

I was born and raised in Lake Oswego and know dozens of millionaires. They would be the first to admit that not one of them works as hard as the median American worker. I seriously doubt they have the mental tenacity to hold down 2 normal jobs like so many parents have to do just to afford living costs.

You clearly don't value people being well educated, with desirable skills that are not easily replaceable by John Doe off the street.

That is because you being a former mailman, didn't require any skills or smarts, and any Joe Shmoe could have done your job.

I'm sorry you had to work hard. Maybe you could have put out more effort earlier in life to gain some skills and smarts.

It isn't necessarily about incentive to work hard. It is about incentive for innovation, progress, development, creation of jobs, etc, etc. Otherwise known as: Working smart.

 

[Sinobas]

We have the best healthcare in the world, bar none. We're unhealthy because we choose to be, not because our doctors suck. We're free to eat Big Macs and stuffed crust pizzas and drive where we could walk.

This idea of the uninsured is madness. People either choose to be uninsured because they want more disposable income or they're illegals. NO ONE IS DENIED TREATMENT IN THIS COUNTRY. It's a false crisis.

Note the talk about "using health care more efficiently". That's code for "rationing care". How long are you willing to wait for a surgery that is deemed non-life threatening?

BTW, when the Government tells you what kind of care you can receive, they also can tell you how to live. If you smoke, you don't get access to treatment for lung cancer. If you drink, you can't get a liver transplant. If you're obese, you can't get a joint replacement.

I'm amazed at how willingly people are giving up control of their lives.

P.S. The Congress likes this kind of health care so much they've exempted themselves from it.

Yes. If someone is not insured, they'll get treatment anyway, and we'll have to pay for it(life threatening stuff anyway). This bill should also include some sort of over-sight into how much hospitals and insurance companies are charging. If they have less uninsured people coming in for emergency treatment, will they lower prices or just pocket the difference? Also if I have money in the bank but am temporarily un-employed/uninsured, I will STILL have to pay my hospital bills, it will just be one enormous bill. But should I have the right to take the risk of going without it for awhile?

And I agree, that in order to REALLY cut into this problem, people need to start living healthier lifestyles. We need to make vast changes in our dietary habits, as well as excercise and reducing our exposure to a variety of toxic substances. That would go a long way in reducing our total health care costs.

I bet this bill has insurance lobbiets all over it. You're just getting more money to flow into their pockets. Don't tell me it was Congress' brilliant fucking scheme....hmm, how do we provide universal health care coverage? I know! Force everyone to buy it! Isn't this like solving the unemployment problem by forcing those without work to do community service for free? Individual health care insurance costs huge, and could cripple many families monthly budgets.


Anyway.....this country is totally fucked. Corporations and private bankers are running the show....it's out of control, and it doesn't matter which dick-weeds we elect from our two piece of shit parties.

 

[MARIS61]

First, it's Reagan, not Regan. If you're going to bring up a former president, have enough respect for the office to spell his last name correctly. And second, he brought them down and wanted them to go down further. Tax rates have to go up and down in a slow curve, not all at once. He also lowered capital gains taxes.

Actually, he raised taxes nearly 50% for the average American.

He raised the standard rate from 11% to 15% for most real workers, and effectively eliminated their biggest deduction (healthcare costs, which went from 100% deductible to not being deductible at all for most).

Then he created many loopholes for the wealthy and corporations while letting our nation's infrastructure crumble and corrode, ran up the biggest national debt known to man at that point in history, and started us tumbling downhill to the pit of misery that is our nation today.

He destroyed the unions, and quite predictably destroyed what was once the greatest workforce in the world.

He was a horrible President and a really bad person.

 

[BTOWN_HUSTLA]

Why should the wealthy pay to fund the military to protect the poor?

because the military are the poor.

that answer your question sufficiently?

 

[BTOWN_HUSTLA]

The unfortunate problem is that many people are born into a scenario. Rich people tend to hold onto their wealth providing substantial advantages for the generation after them. Poor people constantly spend to do silly things like, I don't know, stay alive, and so have little to pass on to their next generation.

I have no problem with individual X earning a bazillion dollars, though I would hope that at some point way up there they'd realize that they don't need more. The problem I have is that once individual X is way up there they can pass along huge, huge advantages to their next generation who haven't contributed one iota to society.

If one is going to force the rich to earn less, then force the poor to spend less. Eye for an eye.

 

[maxiep]

Because the people he loves and cares about are all tied to the busted system, yes he took me to school. Unfortunatley the lesson was that his self-interest is more important than the health of his country. This is the Neocon way, self-interest ahead of nation. Then you wrap that in a bunch of meritocracy, pull yourself up by your own bootstrap bullshit. The founders believed in equality, and in the belief of a nation that stood together against exploitation and unfair treatment. The fact that Maxie believes poverty to be a choice in itself shows that he is out of touch. When I said he was out of touch his response was that his mother has a high paying job at a hospital and his sister is a doctor...a great perspective on poverty.

Ah, to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities. Yep, that's what America is about. Being created equal and living at the same level are two different things.

As for my mother, she never made the kind of money she could have by working for a for-profit corporation. In fact, I made more money as a low-level I-banker in my early 20s than she did her last year before she retired. And my sister? She is a resident at Seattle Children's Hospital. Next year, she's moving to Kenya to work in a rural clinic. Before medical school, she was in the Peace Corps. So yeah, they're both money-grubbing "neo cons".

You should read some Norman Podhoretz; you might learn exactly what the label you ascribe to me actually means.

 

[BTOWN_HUSTLA]

damn neocons! go back to reading yourz bibles and watching teh O'Reiley on FOX NEWS (hissssssss)

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

My deepest concern here is the fact the threshold is set at $8/hr. If some person was working a job making $8.10/hr they have to come up with money out of their pocket to buy themselves health insurance or face penalties from the federal government. Since they aer unable to do that, it stands to reason the federal plan will have some cost factor built in whereby that person's policy will probably be very close to free. That means someone is going to have to pay for those millions of policies and/or subsequent health care. Will it be an additional tax on the "wealthy"? Will it be an additional tax on the rest of us? And since there are so many millions of people in that same predicament, the cost will easily be in the billions per year, just like the other billions per year for those making less than $8/hr. Thus the dependancy on the feds for healthcare continues to grow and Obama gets the single payer national health cxare system he wants and taxes are raised to choking levels to support it. Or at least that's one plausible way to look at it.

 

[yakbladder]

If one is going to force the rich to earn less, then force the poor to spend less. Eye for an eye.

I think you've missed completely the point of my post. Although you have reinforced my idea that capitalism never works in it's purest form because it relies too much on the goodwill and/or charity of people.

 

[yakbladder]

I understand why you would think this way, but isn't part of the joy of earning money being able to pass it along to your progeny?

I don't think that there's anything wrong with the state providing a level playing field, but I think it would overstep its bounds to level things every generation.

Ed O.

I don't know, is that part of the joy? How many progeny are you spawning off to absorb your untold millions Ed?

If the playing field isn't leveled through absorption of some manner, either pre or post-death then the only other thing I can think of is to provide all of the absolute top-quality opportunities in housing, health care, education, and nutrition to every American up until they go to college. But since there's no one to pay for it...hrm..well, you can see the dilemma.

 

[BTOWN_HUSTLA]

I think you've missed completely the point of my post. Although you have reinforced my idea that capitalism never works in it's purest form because it relies too much on the goodwill and/or charity of people.

success is a choice. sure, some people start out better than others but people who strive hard and are smart about things succeed. what keeps people poor is having people take care of them and they become lazy or dependant.

 

[blazerboy30]

I think you've missed completely the point of my post. Although you have reinforced my idea that capitalism never works in it's purest form because it relies too much on the goodwill and/or charity of people.

I read an article sometime ago that discussed this issue. I think it was in the 40's, 90% of aid given to the poor was through charity and church. Today, 90% of aid given to the poor is through the government.

Are they better off now? I don't know, but I do know that this change has increased the size of the government and increased inefficiencies.

 

[Ed O]

I don't know, is that part of the joy? How many progeny are you spawning off to absorb your untold millions Ed?

Having children nor making money is a passion of mine. I don't begrudge those who choose to combine those two things.

If the playing field isn't leveled through absorption of some manner, either pre or post-death then the only other thing I can think of is to provide all of the absolute top-quality opportunities in housing, health care, education, and nutrition to every American up until they go to college. But since there's no one to pay for it...hrm..well, you can see the dilemma.

There will always be rich people and there will always be poor people.

My personal philosophy is that we try to make our poor comfortable enough to not overturn the apple cart while giving a chance for many of the best/brightest/hard working to become wealthier. This country is not great and will never be great by trying to make everyone the same... we have a spirit of individualism that should not be stamped out through additional, perpetual, irreversible collectivist government actions.

Ed O.

 

[yakbladder]

There will always be rich people and there will always be poor people.

My personal philosophy is that we try to make our poor comfortable enough to not overturn the apple cart while giving a chance for many of the best/brightest/hard working to become wealthier. This country is not great and will never be great by trying to make everyone the same... we have a spirit of individualism that should not be stamped out through additional, perpetual, irreversible collectivist government actions.

Ed O.

I completely agree. Nowhere do I advocate taxing people at 100% or making people completely the same - I advocate either you accept the taxes that are graduated or if you're convinced people just "haven't worked hard enough" you have to guarantee them the same exact opportunities. Put up or shut up. But the same arguments come up time and time again - that no one will have incentive to work if the government taxes at a high rate. To me, that is completely bullocks.

 

[yakbladder]

I read an article sometime ago that discussed this issue. I think it was in the 40's, 90% of aid given to the poor was through charity and church. Today, 90% of aid given to the poor is through the government.

Are they better off now? I don't know, but I do know that this change has increased the size of the government and increased inefficiencies.

A better question is why is that true? Is that true because the government stepped in and started handing out money left and right because it had nothing better to do? Or is it because people and society changed and they aren't as connected, aren't as willing to donate to general charity? Or is it a combination of the two?

My personal opinion is that it's somewhat of the first because of the various government directives, aka War on Poverty, but much of it is the second as people have become less connected with their neighbor. I know some people who don't even connect with their immediate family because they're "just connected by genetics and have no obligation otherwise". True enough, but still sad.